‘You’re Welcome’ – New Guardians of the Galaxy 2 TV Spot

Blockbuster season is starting earlier than ever before in 2017, with March boasting five tentpole studio releases. Despite that early kick-off, the current kings of the box office Marvel won’t be getting in on the action until the more conventional starting point of May with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

Although there’s a lot of big movies between now and the arrival of the sequel to the 2014 smash hit, Guardians 2 is still one of the most anticipated films in the first half of the year; it was the big winner from the Super Bowl on social media by quite a margin. That’s hardly surprising given how strong the marketing has been so far – the production was very careful about what it revealed and the various short trailers so far have teased an expansion of the original without giving away much in terms of tangible plot.

A new 30-second TV spot for the film has been released that continues in this trend, revealing some new footage (and song) without giving anything major away.

The spot heavily jokes about the film being a sequel; it opens with a knowing exchange between Rocket and Star-Lord – “So we’re saving the galaxy again?” “Who else is gonna do it?” – and the tag-line – “You only get one chance… to save the galaxy… twice” – is incredibly tongue-in-cheek. This is something the marketing hasn’t really engaged with so far, and somewhat goes against the talk of how Vol. 2 will be a very different beast to the first, but the self-aware approach is rather fitting – it plays into the franchise’s overarching irreverence.

There’s also the increased overt presence of music. Obviously it adds David Bowie’s Suffragette City to the second Awesome Mix Vol. 2 (something that makes Bowie the only artist with a track on both soundtracks), but it also highlights the score’s diegetic part of the action, with the song only playing after Baby Groot plugs the tape player into an amp. James Gunn has previously talked about how music will play a bigger role in the sequel, and this appears to be a little show of that.

Besides those big talking points, there’s some nice new footage, most notably Drax kicking down a door flanked Gamora, Mantis and Nebula and Bautista’s rather different reaction to Pom Klementieff’s character getting hit by a stray rock from the Super Bowl spot, remarking “that almost hit me” instead of a belated “watch out”.

That Disney is starting releasing TV spots now is rather surprising – they’re normally part of the short lead marketing strategy and the film’s still three months away – but after such positive test screening reactions they must be very confident in the product.